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ABDUCTED: BUT BY ALIENS OR THE MILITARY?
T
he month of October 1973 was one that will go down in UFO history. It was a month in which the United States was swamped by intrusions from UFOs. The late Leonard Stringfield—a UFO researcher and former intelligence officer with the US Air Force— was someone who lived through that astonishing flying saucer wave and who offered the following recollections: The tornadic effect of 1973’s flap was to stun a nation already troubled by Watergate and a Middle East crisis. At its peak, October 17—in one 24-hour period—there were more than fifty cities and towns reporting concentrated UFO activity. Switchboards of the news media and police were jammed by calls from frightened citizens. Many reported extraordinary lighted objects at low levels; others claimed closer encounters. Of those closer encounters, one really stands out. It’s an encounter which gets to the very crux of this book. It involved two men who, before they were abducted by strange beings on a Mississippi river, were doing nothing stranger than a spot of fishing.